Tag Archives: NASD

Fox Business has just came out with an interview with Stanford Financial whistleblower Layla Wydler, who was fired from Stanford Financial Group in 2002 when she refused to participate in what seven years later has been finally exposed by federal law enforcement authorities as a “massive Ponzi scheme.”

In 2000, Stanford offered Wydler, a top broker-dealer, a sizeable salary plus a signing bonus. In exchange, Wydler made a five-year commitment to Stanford and brought her valuable book of business with her.

Red Flags

Soon after starting, Wydler became suspicious. First, the Stanford “CDs” were actually administered as a hedge fund and invested in the money market. Consequently, “Stanford was paying about 3% more than everyone else in the world was paying on CDs without explaining how he could earn that return. … [H]ow can you do that, sell a product that you call a CD when it’s really not a CD?” asks Wydler.

Second, Stanford rebuffed requests for portfolio appraisals. “[W]e would never be able to get that from them because they would tell me it’s proprietary information. [There was] a lot of mystery,” says Wydler.

Third, much like Madoff, Stanford’s audits were done by “mom and pop” accountants. “[Standord’s] financials were not audited by a U.S. reputable account[ing] firm. [Instead,] it was done by an unknown firm in Antigua. To me, that was a red flag,” states Wydler.

Fourth, Stanford would claim the CDs were insured by Lloyd’s of London. “[B]ut that’s not what it was,” says Wydler. “It was just to cover the directors and employees in case of a lawsuit, and not the client accounts at all.”

Fifth, the Stanford headquarters building had a plaque stating “Member of SIPC.” This falsely implied the SIPC’s protection covered the CDs. “[I]t’s misleading,” states Wydler. “[Y]ou [would] see the SIPC sign, [and] you would imagine that everything was safe.”

Arbitration

After Wydler refused to sell the CDs, Stanford fired her. “[T]hey wanted me to pay back the promissory note that…was a part of the signing bonus that they gave me when they hired me,” says Wydler. Stanford took Wydler to arbitration before FINRA and sought in excess of $100,000.
Wydler counterclaimed wrongful termination, alleging the firing was punishment for refusing to participate in Stanford’s Ponzi scheme. “[I]n the arbitration, we asked for the documents that would have supported the claim,” i.e., portfolio appraisals and Lloyd’s insurance policies supposedly backing the CDs, says Wydler’s attorney, Mike Falick. “And we were turned down.” Not surprisingly, the arbitrators ruled against Wydler, awarding Stanford over $107,000. (Stanford eventually settled for an undisclosed amount.)

Subsequently, Wydler reported Stanford to the SEC. However, the SEC took no action for five years. “I think there was ineptitude on the part of the regulatory agencies,” states Falick. “NSAD [the predecessor of FINRA and the agency that was responsible for this arbitration] is a self-regulatory body…charged with making [sure] the broker dealers are operating fairly and legally. The SEC is charged with protecting people. I don’t think either one of them, given the opportunities that they had and the information that they had, did what they need to do to make that happen.”

The Hefty Price Tag of Arbitral “Efficiency”

When asked whether he could have subpoenaed the documents to crack the case in court, Falick answered, “If I could’ve gotten this case out of FINRA, the day that we had the discovery issue, when FINRA told me…’we’re not gonna allow you to get those documents,’…that day it would’ve happened.”

Instead of having her day in court, Wydler was forced into a Star Chamber arbitration and panel that denied her the opportunity to support her claims with discovery and to pay the criminal organization she tried to report $107,782. So thanks in part to NASD’s arbitrators, the fraud was allowed to continue for five more years until it finally collapsed under its own weight.

“I asked for the documents that would’ve proven her case and we were stonewalled by Stanford and we were told by FINRA that our document request was irrelevant,” says Falick. “[H]ad we gotten those documents, not only would Leyla have won her case, but maybe 30,000 people wouldn’t have lost their life savings.”

“[W]hen I left, I believe that there was about a billion dollar in the bank,” says Wydler. “[I]t ended at 7.2 billion.”

As an attorney, my advice to my clients is to refuse to participate in any binding arbitration unless they were aware of and understood what arbitration entails at the time they signed the contract containing an arbitration clause. Increasingly courts are recognizing that essentially businesses are using private arbitrators to shield them from the consequences of their lawbreaking, and refusing to enforce arbitration clauses.

Just how corrupt and pervasively dysfunctional is private arbitration in America right now?

Via Felix Salmon, the Financial Times reports that more than five years ago a lady by the name of Leyla Basagoitia who worked at the Ponzi scheme known as Stanford Financial quit her job and alerted the SEC and the NASD (now called FINRA) her suspicions about the criminal fraud going on.
Rather than having her day in court, instead Ms. Basagoitia was forced into a kangaroo arbitration and forced by the arbitrators to pay the criminal organization she tried to blow the whistle on $107,782.

So in part because of NASD’s arbitrators, the fraud was allowed to continue for years longer until it finally collapsed on its own weight last month.

As the article notes:

Ms Basagoitia told an arbitration panel at the National Association of Securities Dealers in October 2003 that she suspected Stanford Group Company, one of Sir Allen’s key businesses, was “engaged in a Ponzi scheme to defraud its clients”, according to case documents. In 2007, the NASD became the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
In a nine-point critique, Ms Basagoitia pointed to many concerns cited last week by the SEC in its charges against Sir Allen’s businesses, including allegations about the lack of a credible auditor, mis-selling of products and the promise of consistently high returns that did not “correspond to the reality of the markets”.
Ms. Basagoitia’s allegations were denied by Stanford Group Company and dismissed by the dispute resolution panel. She was ordered to pay Stanford $107,782 in damages, in repayment of a loan advanced to her while an employee of the company.

Great work again by the Financial Times, in particular to reporters Robert Cookson and Michael Peel in London and Joanna Chung in New York.
PS: I had my moment in the famous pink pages of the Financial Times last year. Have a look at the end of this article.